Group Files for Hand Recount

One month after the Anchorage Municipal Election ballot fiasco, the Assembly is set to consider certification of the April 3rd election. A group of voters says that should not happen before a hand recount and independent investigation, but the Assembly has released a report by an outside attorney supporting certification.

The attorney hired by the Assembly recommends certifying the election. In the report, Timothy Petumenos, writes that, “Outright corrupt or criminal conduct which may have been aimed at affecting the outcome of an election is insufficient ground to invalidate an election unless the conduct reasonably had the potential for changing the outcome.”

But that opinion will not sit well with a group of voters pushing for an audit and hand recount of the election. Guadalupe Marroquin is one voter who is pushing for recount. She says it’s premature to certify the election before there’s been a independent investigation and hand count of the ballots.

“It’s a very easy beginning to bring the public back into feeling like they have ownership with elections,” Marroquin said.

And Marroquin’s opinion holds some weight – she served as Deputy Clerk for the Municipality from 2003 to 2009. In a letter to the Assembly, and in an opinion piece which appeared in the Anchorage Daily News earlier this week, she listed several concerns about the election. But her main concern is how the voting machines irregularities.

“There was such lack security in the care of the security seals that were placed on the AccuVote machines to protect the memory cards,” Marroquin said.

The current Deputy Clerk, Jacqueline Duke addressed that issue in an interview on April 21. She acknowledged that the seals on the AccuVote memory cards were flimsy and prone to breaking in transport. She says she told workers that they could replace those tabs if they were broken.

“Duke: Yes, it’s very important to keep the machine from being tampered with. But the person who would have tampered with is be the election worker themselves. – Daysha: So it’s possible that they could have been tampered with by an election worker if a tab was broken? — Duke: Absolutely.”

Duke says, for tampering to occur, you would have to have an extremely deep understanding of the voting machine cards, the software and of the machines themselves, and that the clerk’s office is counting on the honesty of election workers.

“Daysha: Can you reassure people that there was no tampering or can you not? – Duke: You know what, if you ever doubt that there’s tampering or think that there’s something illegal that happened with the election, that’s why we have process called recount. We have every single ballot that’s secure in every single precinct ballot bag that’s secure in the office and if you would like we can recount the entire election.”

That’s exactly what Attorney Hal Gazaway would like to see happen. He is the leader of the group that filed the application with the clerk’s office this week requesting an audit and a physical hand recount of the paper ballots from the election.

“There were a number of irregularities in this last election. There were a number of petitions being circulated online and a lot of email traffic. The administration weren’t calling for a recount and it seemed like there needed to be a hand recount,” Gazaway said.

Gazaway says one big reason he would like to see a recount is because of reports of problems with the voting machines, and it’s critical to have a hand recount before certification. He’s hoping for a big voter turnout at tonight’s special assembly meeting where certification is on the table.

“I think that the people, if they’re concerned about whether their vote counts. I think this is the time to step up and speak that they want their vote to count, that they’re not apathetic and just don’t care. That they do care that their votes are counted, that the do care that they have the opportunity to vote,” Gazaway said.

Ultimately, Gazaway says his group would like to see an independent third party investigation of the April 3 Municipal Election, something the Assembly chair has said is likely to happen, but not necessarily before the election is certified. Gazaway says the hand count should come before any of that.

If the election is certified, under municipal code all paper ballots will be destroyed within 30 days of certification.

The Anchorage Assembly is set to consider certification of the April 3rd Municipal Election at a special meeting set for Thursday at 5:00.

Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.